Doctor of Philosophy in Mechanical or Aerospace Engineering
To be eligible for admission into the doctor of philosophy degree program, a candidate must hold or expect to receive (by the enrollment date) an B.S. degree in some discipline of engineering from an institution which has an ABET accredited undergraduate program in engineering or an internationally recognized program in engineering.
The doctorate is a research or performance degree and does not depend on the accumulation of credit hours. The requirements for the degree are: passing of the qualifying examination, admission to candidacy, residency, completion of dissertation research, and defense of a research dissertation. At least one member of the graduate faculty from outside the department is required to serve on the advisory and examining committee. The Ph.D. degree signifies that the holder has the competence to function independently at the highest level in the chosen field. Hence, the number of years involved in attaining or retaining competency cannot be readily specified, nor can an exact program of study be defined. The course work taken should be sufficient to broaden the student’s background in at least one other area of the department in addition to the major area of study.
Qualifying Exam The Ph.D. qualifying/candidacy examination is the method of assessing whether the student has attained sufficient knowledge of the discipline and supporting fields in order to undertake independent research or practice. Students are required to pass a qualifying examination administered by the department which tests for a minimum level of proficiency expected of all students in a given area. It is expected that students will take the qualifying exam during their first semester of enrollment in the Ph.D. program; however it is required that full-time students pass the qualifying examination no later than the end of the second semester of their Ph.D. program. As the student progresses, his/her advisory and examining committee is charged with evaluating the student’s competency in the specific area of study through the evaluation of a dissertation proposal for the research to be completed and the evaluation of the student’s plan of study and associated course work. After these requirements are completed, the student is formally admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree. Only at this point can a student be called a doctoral candidate; admission to the graduate program for the purpose of pursuing the Ph.D. is not equivalent to becoming a Ph.D. candidate. Doctoral candidates are allowed no more than five years to complete the remaining degree requirements after admission to candidacy. An extension of time can be obtained only by repeating the qualifying examination and meeting any other requirements specified by the student’s committee.
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